Data Stories: Keeping Score to Do More

According to Van Council, who co-owns Van Michael Salons and Spas in Atlanta, we are living in an increasingly data-driven world, and your employees are already keeping score. “They wear Smart watches and FitBits to measure their fitness and sleep patterns.”

Council brings that same mentality to work by using ZeeZor, a performance app that lets each service provider see both their numbers and the numbers of their colleagues in real time.

“The person who brings in the most money to your salon may not be your most valuable player,” Council says. “You have to use all the metrics available to measure them in different ways, then make your competitive people competitive against themselves and their colleagues.”

An avid bike racer, Council said he truly understood the importance of daily measurement and goal tracking when he started working with a coach. He wears a performance device during each day’s training session and his coach reviews his numbers with him every day. “If you use the typical method of sitting down with each employee every three months to review their goals and performance, it’s too late to do anything about those past three months,” Council says. “But if you use a tool that measures performance daily, you can enact real change.”

The metrics Council tracks daily for every team member include: service sales, retail sales, SGP (service guests’ purchases as a percentage), average transaction $ amount, average retail ticket, number of clients, number of clients rebooked.

How does measuring daily make a difference? “When we started, the SGP rate was 22%, and today about 35% of customers buy retail. It’s changed the way we calculate retail commission,” Council says.

Each day, at each Van Michael location, the manager performs a daily lineup, reviewing one of the salons service standards while keeping the team up to date on anything happening at their location or throughout the company.

“During the lineup we always acknowledge the top five stylists in service sales and retail sales from the previous day,” Council says. “It’s a fast, fun way of recognizing the team.”

Although Council can pull up these numbers in ZeeZor at any time, he still have his managers go through the process of preparing a weekly report that gets emailed to him. “A weekly report is sent to me from each manager each week. It makes them take ownership in the results of their location.”

When it comes to working your way up the ladder at Van Michael, seniority doesn’t mean. “It’s all based on performance, which means a new stylist can come into the company and quickly shine.” In order to receive a promotion and price increase, a stylist has to meet certain criteria: They have to be booked at least two weeks out; maintain a retail per client ticket rate of at least $10; maintain a new client retention rate of 35; a new client request rate of 25%; and reach 80% of their service goal.

All team members have the opportunity to earn additional retail money when they hit certain yearly benchmarks. At $30,000 they earn $3,000; at $40,000, they earn $4,000; at $50,000 they earn $5,000 and at $60,000 they earn $6,000.

Metrics also dictate longevity. Council maintains minimum benchmarks that stylists must meet to remain on the team, including $95,000 annually in service sales, $18,200 in retail sales or $113,200 in combined sales. “If they can’t maintain that after two years, we let them go,” he says.

Since all team members can see each other’s numbers, it creates a healthy competition among the locations. “Each year, I take the top 20 service providers to a private dinner—everyone knows who is going by watching the numbers.”

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